Overview

WHY IT MATTERS?

This guidance sets out how companies and supply chain actors to work with the ITF to identify and address human and labour rights risks across transport. 

Failing to manage these risks exposes companies to legal liability, operational disruption and reputational harm. As mandatory HRDD laws expand, companies are increasingly required to demonstrate how they identify risks, take action to prevent harm and ensure effective remedy where violations occur.

Worker-centred, gender-responsive HRDD – developed in cooperation with trade unions – enables companies to strengthen risk identification, improve monitoring and deliver effective, lasting solutions. This approach supports compliance with international standards while improving working conditions and supply chain resilience in practice.

This guidance aligns with internationally recognised HRDD frameworks, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the ILO Tripartite Declaration, the ILO Forced Labour Protocol, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. These frameworks make clear that effective due diligence depends on identifying, preventing and mitigating human rights risks across supply chains, and on respecting freedom of association, collective bargaining and worker engagement.

Duties across transport supply chains

All companies and supply chain actors are accountable for addressing human and labour rights not only within their operations, but also across their third-party relationships. In transport, this includes responsibility for the conditions, safety and rights of all workers involved in moving goods and passengers, including those engaged through subcontracting or any other intermediary services.

Safe, fair and sustainable supply chains

A safe, fair and sustainable supply chain is built on decent work, transparency, accountability. At a minimum, it must guarantee internationally recognised human rights and labour standards, including ILO codes of practice, guidelines and guidance and agreed industrial and sectoral standards.

These rights must apply to all workers regardless of their employment status.

Working with trade unions strengthens risk identification, prevention and mitigation

Effective due diligence in transport depends on meaningful engagement with workers and their trade unions. The UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises make clear that companies must engage with affected stakeholders, including workers and trade unions, to identify and address human rights risks. 

Trade unions provide direct insights that significantly strengthens risk identification, enabling companies to pinpoint risks that are often invisible through audits or top-down assessments. Multi-stakeholder approaches have shown that the active inclusion of unions improves risk mapping by ensuring that the “most important risks for workers’ rights are identified and addressed effectively”, which is increasingly critical under mandatory HRDD legislation. HRDD laws and standards also explicitly expect companies to engage with workers and trade unions to design and monitor corrective actions, to create more accountable processes.

Collaboration with trade unions strengthens prevention, mitigation and remediation. Worker representation strengthens early warning systems, effective grievance mechanisms and continuous monitoring – helping companies address risks before they escalate.

As mandatory HRDD regimes expand globally, companies that embed structured social dialogue and collective bargaining are better positioned to meet legal requirements and demonstrate effective risk management in practice.

RESOURCES